Tags: life, literature, motivation, quote, Victor Hugo
Yiasou!
Stephanie Nikolopoulos is a writer, editor, writing teacher, and speaker based in New York City.
She is the coauthor, with Paul Maher Jr., of "Burning Furiously Beautiful: The True Story of Jack Kerouac's 'On the Road.'"
You can email her at stephanie_701 {@} yahoo.com
Can wildflowers be cultivated?
One of the ideas the publishing industry consistently pushes is to know and write to your audience. When I’ve taught writing workshops and spoken at literary events, I’ve preached the same thing! It’s solid, practical advice. I stand by it … BUT isn’t it delicious to keep what Beat author Jack Kerouac calls “scribbled secret notebooks” and “wild typewritten pages” — simply “for yr own joy”?! To write with abandon, not worried about what social media or your mom might think? Remember what Oscar Wilde quipped: “I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train.” So here’s my pro tip: Keep that salacious diary, the one where you dare to be authentic and raw and weird. Write like no one is reading because for now they aren’t. Then, when you’re ready, steal voraciously from your diary. Readers don’t fit into neat categories. Dare to be you. The readers, that elusive target audience, will follow because at last they’ll be given something real, something honest, something true, something messy, something that makes them feel a little less alone. When you write, do you have an audience in mind?
Do you keep a notebook? I have so many notebooks. I am surrounded by legal writing pads and my diary and my writing workshop notebook and my writing group legal pad notebook and my daily planner. And then there are the sticky notes. The notes stuck to my computer screen. The notes stuck in between the pages of my various notebooks. The sticky notes stuck to each other pile. The notes keep piling up. A collage of ideas and quotes and dreams.
So much more is possible than you could understand. Take that little next step toward your wildest dreams. Sign up for that writing workshop. Book that flight. Get out those paintbrushes. Call that friend. Buy a cup of coffee for the homeless person by the subway. Quit that toxic job. Start that business idea. Take that trapeze class. Get up to see the sunrise. Pray. Dream. Live more fully. Dance with the whale.
Certain cross streets come across like metaphors.
New week. Pick your vibe.
Twitter Updates
- #FreeAustinTice twitter.com/MarcATice/stat… 11 months ago
- RT @MichaelHyatt: You don’t have to see the end from the beginning. All you have to see is the next step. 11 months ago
- RT @PSLiterary: “You don’t start out writing good stuff. You start out writing crap and thinking it’s good stuff, and then gradually you ge… 1 year ago
- RT @GarySnyderQuote: I am intrigued by the sense that culture itself has a wild edge. As Claude Levi-Strauss remarked years ago, the arts a… 1 year ago
- RT @GarySnyderQuote: National Treasure: Gary Snyder lionsroar.com/national-treas… 1 year ago
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